At River Hill HS, an active-duty Army trauma surgeon from Walter Reed hospital worked with Howard County Fire and Rescue to teach a class about on-site trauma care that may be performed by a citizen during the first few minutes after an injury and before EMS arrives.
Transcript
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(Col. Remick) This is part of what is called “Stop the Bleed” campaign. This is a campaign that was initiated really as a collaboration between the Department of Defense and some federal agencies, the White House, the National Security Council, really to translate the lessons that we learned on the battlefield over the past decade to our civilian population.
(Tanner) As a mission of the Army and of course the mission here in Howard County through the Howard County Fire and Rescue and the Howard County government is to train everyone in “Stop the Bleed” and learn how to save a life. So, it’s a good thing for a community champion such as Col. Remick to bring this to River Hill High School and for us to show that we can implement this into the health curriculum. Howard County Department of Fire and Rescue Services is actually working with the health curriculum educators to implement this at the start of the 2018 school year.
(Col. Remick) The premise of training citizens is that they can be by standards to common events such as car crashes or falls. The time between the event when it starts and when the formal EMS or fire and rescue arrive is really a key time. Learning how to pack a wound properly and learning how to apply a tourniquet you can save someones life who is bleeding from a trauma. That’s a really important skill to have.
(Thakur) Before this I would of not known what to do. I would of probably called 9-1-1 and just sat there not knowing what to do. But in this demonstration I learned some of the very basic methods in which I can really stall the situation and save a persons life.
(Tanner) It’s really important for people to just be aware and start to do something before the first responders arrive because as community members we are immediate responders. So if we can step up and do something, we can most likely save a life.
(Col. Remick) Howard Country has been very supportive and it’s the right thing to do to be out front of this campaign in Maryland.
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